Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a libertarian-minded Democrat who has also expressed reservations about the Obama administration’s drone policy, shortly before 4 p.m. became the fifth senator and first Democrat to join Paul’s filibuster.

“It’s my view that the senator from Kentucky has made a number of important points today,” Wyden said.

“I want it understood that I have great respect for this effort to really ask these kinds of questions,” Wyden said. “And Sen. Paul has certainly been digging into these issues in great detail.”

On Wednesday, Wyden said he would “pull out all the stops to get the actual legal analysis, because without it, in effect, the administration is, in effect, practicing secret law,” a comment that came as scrutiny mounted over the use of drones to target U.S. citizens abroad. Later Wednesday, President Barack Obama decided to provide classified Justice Department information to congressional intelligence committees on that issue. It’s a move that comes as John Brennan — who was intimately involved in drones-related decisions as Obama’s counterterrorism adviser — prepares to appear before a Senate panel for his confirmation hearings.

The eye-opening experience that this has been for the people of my party cannot be over-stated. Here ares some thoughts from one of Wyden’s constituents, Blue Oregon:

The fact that the Obama Administration is actually trying to make a legal argument that it’s okay to kill US citizens on US soil without due process, even if it’s meant only for extraordinary circumstances, is appalling. And yes, I voted for Obama. But this is just flat wrong and frankly, antithetical to what it means to be an American as far as I’m concerned.

So, I would like to encourage my conservative friends to take a little time out from the Paul-a-palooza and show a little love for the sassy Senator from Oregon, perhaps thanking him for having some backbone. His contact information:

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Leslie, I’m one step ahead of you. I’ve been a lifelong reagan republican, and I wrote to Ron Wyden to tell him I appreciated the support of civil rights, even if I disagreed with him vehemently on many social issues.

Speaking of shout-outs, Leslie, your fellow Democrat Walter Russell Mead gave one to the civic efforts you’ve been involved in in San Diego.

(OT: Mead strikes me as a conscience of the Democratic Party rather than a partisan. My main reservation is that he seems too optimistic that the country will solve its current problems. He may well be correct—obviously I hope so—, but IMO he underestimates the downside risk.)

I thanked Senator Wyden via Twitter yesterday, but followed up with a voicemail to his DC office just now at your request.

I’m sure I don’t agree with most of his politics, but I’ve been aware he wasn’t a typical Democrat ever since he stood up for a Corvallis businessman who’d put up a mural insisting on independence for Tibet and Taiwan (the ChiComs had demanded the mural’s removal).